After a few days without traveling I thought it was time to start again, so I’m now in Durham. This is Durham, North Carolina, USA, not Durham, County Durham, UK.

Now the Durham in the UK is the older one, but unlike some other places with similar names, Durham, USA, doesn’t seem to be named after its older cousin (Durham, UK can be traced back to at least 995AD and Durham, USA back only to 1853AD).

See if you can spot the difference between the skyline above and this one:

Durham, UK was named after the old English “dun-holm” which means “hill-island” and was founded by monks from Lindisfarne, an island off the coast of Northumberland where  Saint Aidan founded a monastery in 635AD.

Ah Lindisfarne, what a great band they were (despite Paul Gascoigne, English footballer, ruining one of their most famous songs “Fog on the Tyne”).

Have a look and listen at this:

One of their finest songs ever, “Winter Song”, back in 1984 at their regular Christmas venue of the time, Newcastle City Hall (you can even hear Def Leppard playing a version of it from 1994 but its not as good as the original sung by the man who wrote it). Sadly, Alan Hull (singing) is no longer with us but he will always be remembered fondly by many from the North East of England.

Back to Durham, USA. This seems to have been named after Bartlet Durham (now he might have been named after Durham, UK) who lived in the area and donated land to the railroad, which then named the depot formed their after him. This then extended to become the city today.

Another interesting link between the two cities of the same name - Durham, USA, is the home of the Bull Durham Tobacco Company. The name Bull Durham is supposed to have come from someone who got the idea from the bull on the label of Coleman’s Mustard (not to be confused with French’s Mustard that you get here in the USA which is only for wimps - This is man’s Mustard to be taken in small quantities). Now this guy thought that Coleman’s Mustard was manufactured in Durham, UK. It wasn’t - its from Norwich (where it was presumably made by people with three fingers who were married to their sisters).

OK, maybe its not that interesting to you, but it is when your name is Mustard, especially one from County Durham!